Thousands backing Peter voted mistakenly for Carolynne

Callers backing Peter Brame ended up wrongly voting for his rival Carolynne Good when their phone-in numbers became mixed up on screen.

The error led to thousands of votes being miscast during an eight-minute period after the pair performed a duet.

All of these votes were discounted as soon as the mistake was uncovered.

Peter, 24, of Colchester, Essex, was later kicked off the programme by his fellow contestants after the public vote left him in the last two alongside Carolynne.

But a Fame Academy spokeswoman stressed that the disqualified calls had been set aside, and said there was no impact on the outcome.

She added that the ratio of calls received during the disqualified eight minutes accurately reflected the pattern of votes at other times.

Producers said they were delighted with the public's response after 1.5 million phone votes were cast in Saturday's semi-final - up on last year, said the spokeswoman.

Unofficial overnight viewing figures show that about 5.8 million tuned in to see the result - still lower than its ITV1 rival Pop Idol which attracted 6.2 million, and was shown an hour earlier at 9pm.

Nevertheless, producers are optimistic about ratings prospects for the final on Saturday, which last year drew eight million viewers.